Sunday, March 29, 2015

In the Albert Camus version of The Myth of Sisyphus the author has Zeus
condemn the truth-telling king to a never-ending cycle of hard work,
psychologically justified by the illusion of scaling the heights that he would
forever ascend.For Zeus, the
ultimate holder of power, Sisyphus’s truth telling was a deceit and contrary to his interests and therefore the king had to be punished harshly.There is some irony in this retelling of the Hellenic myth given the
locus of today’s latest crisis in global capitalism.

The protracted Greek financial crisis is coming to a
critical moment and can be seen in the larger context of a
failure of the neoliberal economic project in the EU and its devastating
consequences in southern European countries.How can we make this assessment?By considering the history of the larger sovereign debt crises and the way
critical policy decisions are now being made. The “Troika,” (the IMF, The
European Central Bank and the European Commission) has now imposed brutal
austerity measures - as a condition of survival - on member countries who
followed the EU’s free market dictates during the sovereign debt boom but are
now suffering its consequences in a new economic cycle.Greece is the example being set for any member
who is confused about the real aims of the EU financial system.

In today’s media
world of conveniently conflated ideas, we might easily confuse this process for
democracy, but in fact the function of these policies is to serve the narrow
aims of the neoliberal economic project centered in the US and northern
European countries.This project may or
may not exactly fit in with the aims of democracy in various countries, but
that is not a serious consideration when capital flows are at stake, as
these are the profit centers of banking elites, not working class people. Go
ahead, call me a Socialist.Then give some
consideration to these facts.

Lost in this sad story is the history behind the crisis and
its connection to the expansion of global capital through leverage and the sale
of debt as a vehicle for capital growth, when profits are most easily made by
funding the expeditions of elite investors and financial institutions following the guidelines
of the IMF, regardless of its effect on the sovereignty of nations.No matter that a small group of Greek
families managed an oligarchic economy in partnership with big banks and no
matter that sovereign debt was seen as a good bet by the banks and that billions
were made creating it.Greece and others
were following the rules of the game.

Once the financial crisis of 2008 came about, itself a
function of neoliberal economic policies that promote moral hazard, this
project was no longer profitable for banking elites.The capital dried up and the remaining
accounts deficit and shrinking Greek economy was juxtaposed with rising
interest rates, expanding the debt even further.Exactly how are Greek workers responsible for
this?The machinations of big banks are not easily understood by voters in general and corporate media does
nothing to educate voters so that they understand what unelected policy elites
are doing behind the scenes in the “service” of national aspirations.

The Germans for their part, have done a good job of
promoting the concept of Schulden;
basically, “your debt, your problem,” as The Economist has pointed out.This kind of false moralism, placing the blame
for economic crises created by big banks and financial institutions, on the
shoulders of working people and the poor is part of the central myth underlying
the presumed integrity of the current system of financial capital.Contradictions abound, but are buried beneath
the linen tablecloths at the World Economic Forum.The fact that numerous economists from across
the spectrum have pointed out that austerity creates the opposite of economic
growth, which is a prerequisite for realistic and sustained debt service, is obscured
by the banking interests at play.This
is at the expense of serious core economic reform, human rights and
democracy.Did Keynes ever imagine that
“economic discipline” meant cutting off food stamps for the poor, allowing
taxpaying citizens to go without heat or lose their homes as a result of moral
hazard?Of firing public sector workers
and cutting those remaining workers’ wages?Of saddling workers with higher taxes, while allowing oligarchs to not
pay taxes at all?

Media pundits in the service of financial capital can make
various Neo-Keynesian arguments for why the Greeks need to accept
responsibility for their runaway debt and failure to implement adequate
controls and financial reforms “consistent” with those of countries vastly
different from them in culture, geography, natural resources and productive
capacity.Most of these arguments are
coherent within the context of global capitalism and IMF policy.They are also based on a false premise: that
Greek workers created the crisis.

What about democracy and sovereignty?

The The SYRIZA Statute (the link is translatable in Chrome), reads
like a modern day International, having reach far beyond the shores of Greece. This extraordinary document of principles might seem out of step to
most Americans, but can be understood as a profound expression of universal democratic principles
and ideals.That it emerges from Greece,
the birthplace of Pericles and the Golden Age, stands in stark contrast to what
the purported norms of modern democracy have become.That capitalism as-it-actually-exists has
subsumed and perverted core principles of democracy, is no longer a secret in
southern Europe.

Syriza's Thessaloniki Programmeis exciting to read but after doing so
and then looking at the brutal economic regime being forced on the Greek
people, it makes me shed tears. It seems to have the social character of
what may have existed in Spain before the various Republican factions were
crushed by Franco. It is a call to reason, fairness and justice, but finds no kin in the centers of power in Brussels.

Meanwhile, Germany and the northern EU countries appear
unconcerned with the rise of fascism in Greece even though a failure of the
Syriza project may bring it to the fore.Greece is not the only country experiencing this phenomenon and France
and Germany should be acutely aware of the danger. That the EU seems to
be backing Syriza into a corner to bring about its failure says something
profound about the neoliberal economic system that dominates international
relations. Syriza needs all of the help, sympathy and good will they can
get from the rest of the world, but actually existing capitalism almost ensures
that media companies will keep that sympathy from developing.

Despite the fact that austerity will shrink the Greek economy further and reduce revenues making it impossible to retire a corruptly landed debt, the Troika will force this great nation into squalor. Zeus is no mood for mercy.

Perhaps a successful and peaceful exit from the eurozone can be made. Let us hope. This is
painful to watch.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Today’s New York Times Op-Ed column by former US Ambassador
John Bolton reminds us that neoconservative policy forces are alive and well
and pressing hard for more, not less, violent, global conflict. Specifically, Bolton calls for US bombing of Iran, an illegal and reckless act of war. And in a remarkable act of selective judgment, Mr. Bolton takes speculation
as a form of argument to new heights.

“In theory, comprehensive
international sanctions, rigorously enforced and universally adhered to, might
have broken the back of Iran’s nuclear program. But the sanctions imposed have
not met those criteria. Naturally, Tehran wants to be free of them, but
the president’s own director of National Intelligence
testified in 2014 that they had not stopped Iran’s progressing
its nuclear program. There is now widespread acknowledgment that the rosy 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which
judged that Iran’s weapons program was halted in 2003, was an embarrassment,
little more than wishful thinking.”

Yes, but what is the nature of the enrichment program? Mr. Bolton cites the National Intelligence Estimate 2014 as evidence, but that report, written by James Clapper, explicitly states "we do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." The unsupported presumption by Bolton is that nuclear
weapons are being developed, or that their development could be imminent, an
assertion for which there is no evidence and which his own sources refute. While Mr. Bolton relies on speculative articles written in the Guardian, he misuses them and conveniently overlooks a front page article by that same paper,
written this February, referring to leaked
documents from Israel’s Mossad, which contradict his own speculations.In order to accept Bolton’s premise, we have
to view Iran through the narrow and troublesome lens of demonization, while
ignoring other relevant factors, such as Iran’s national aspirations and need
to develop as other nations do.Conveniently
overlooked are any rational factors related to Iran’s energy needs.

Despite Iran’s oil production capacity, it has virtually no
petroleum refining industry and relies utterly on imports for gasoline and
diesel fuel.The import of nuclear medicines
for use in advanced diagnostics and the treatment of numerous cancers has been limited
due to blistering sanctions and these do not factor into Bolton’s calculus
either.Never mind that tens
of thousands of Iranians await cancer treatments.

Once we have overlooked these countervailing factors, it is
easier to accept what amounts to blatant fear mongering.

“Even absent palpable
proof, like a nuclear test, Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear weapons has
long been evident. Now the arms race has begun: Neighboring countries are
moving forward, driven by fears that Mr. Obama’s diplomacy is fostering a
nuclear Iran. Saudi Arabia, keystone of the oil-producing monarchies, has long
been expected to move first. No way would the Sunni Saudis allow the Shiite
Persians to outpace them in the quest for dominance within Islam and Middle
Eastern geopolitical hegemony. Because of reports of early Saudi funding, analysts have long believed that Saudi
Arabia has an option to obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan, allowing it to
become a nuclear-weapons state overnight. Egypt and Turkey, both with imperial
legacies and modern aspirations, and similarly distrustful of Tehran, would be
right behind.”

This is highly speculative and Mr. Bolton is asking us to
commit an illegal act of war on the basis of his unfounded assertions.It should be noted that Iran is a signatory
to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.He presumes to speak on behalf of Egypt and Turkey, while it is clear
that those countries can speak for themselves and have made their own views
clear to the US and the UN.The “source”
that Bolton uses (“analysts have long believed”) is actually not a source but an
article written in the Guardian by its diplomatic editor.The article itself is speculative and its
primary thrust is to call into question
the likelihood of Egypt moving forward with a nuclear program, while it
discounts the possibility that Turkey will build nukes.The article then focuses on purported
discussions between the Saudis and Pakistan with regard to Pakistan providing
ready-made nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia under certain conditions that might
emerge in the future.The editor then
goes on to question whether Pakistan would actually take such a risky
step.Never mind.This is not important to Bolton who will
grasp at straws and twist media reports to justify more illegal military action
in the same way he did in the run up to the Iraq war.

It seems that we need to be reminded of the speculation and
trumped up evidence that was used to justify the Iraq war.Ironically, Bolton’s Op-Ed appears in the
same week as a new report by the Physicians for Social Responsibility detailing
their comprehensive
examination of deaths related to the Iraq war.The report, using very conservative
estimates, places the death toll at 1.3 million, with a more likely figure
being two million, figures significantly higher than those used by the US
government and mainstream media thus far.

What are the likely consequences of an illegal military
attack on Iran?Bolton doesn’t say.Recent history should offer a renunciation of
such posturing, but as historian Barbara Tuchman and others have demonstrated,
history is no antidote to the march of folly.

What is most remarkable about Bolton is that he is a former
ambassador and an expert in foreign policy who was given important
responsibility as a diplomat.Diplomacy
is often our only alternative to war and those given such responsibility are
tasked with using their skills and imagination to engage friend and foe alike
in order to secure peace and normalized relations to the greatest extent
possible.Not only does Mr. Bolton exhibit
a remarkable lack of imagination, he invites us to be as incurious as he is in
pursuing alternatives to war.The
specter of unending war is, on its face, unsustainable and has been proven to
increase chaos, instability, violent extremism, massive loss of civilian life and
human suffering.

The beneficiaries of such policies are few and
powerful.Lockheed Martin, Boeing and
Raytheon, the largest producers of arms in the world, collectively represent
slightly more than 1% of the US $10 Trillion GPD, thanks to US taxpayers.

While we can rail against the likes of Mr. Bolton, we must
also recognize our own complicity in Perpetual War, Inc., whether benign or
otherwise.

“One of the most horrible features of war is that all of the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” - George Orwell

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Meeting with Professor Noam Chomsky during a break at the Helen Caldicott Foundation Symposium on Nuclear Proliferation at the New York Academy of Medicine. At left, my friends John and Ramona Harragin.